Page:Defence of Shelburne.djvu/82

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[76]

is some consideration even for the old party. Lord North well knows, there is a wide space between misfortune and contempt, between political disgrace and moral infamy. The Lord Advocate of Scotland was not proscribed by Mr. Fox, and of this the Earl of Shelburne took immediate advantage. But Mr. Dundas has yet to account to the world, why he abandoned his former party. The acknowledged infamy of his political opinions renders him unworthy of my notice; and if his desertion from his old friends has been unconditional to them, he is beneath the dignity of resentment. If all failed the Earl of Shelburne, I am not sure that he may not adopt those very principles which he reprobated in Mr. Fox, and winch obliged the latter to quit the cabinet. I believe he would forget his own nature to please the Commons. He has the Lords in his pocket, and the King in his hand.

To the Sovereign he has been pretty uniform, and I dare say he would have been entirely so, if it were not necessary to the ridiculous consistency of his character, that he should contradict himself upon every public opinion he has ever delivered. The Earl of Shelburne, upon his own appointment to the Treasury, maintained the doctrine of the King's unqualified

power